Ten on Tuesday

1. We are all still sick here and feeling miserable. Coughing, runny noses, chest congestion,  and little sleep. I will kill for a Z-pack at this point, but am on day three of my amoxicillin instead, which isn't helping at all. I have a sinus and ear infection along with a little bronchitis, fantastic! Needless to say we are all sick of being sick!

2. I can't remember the last time I had an ear infection and am really struggling with the whole, not being able to hear, thing. Not fun at all.

3. My holiday schedule has finally come out and I am working Christmas Eve and New Years Day. This isn't bad and I'm excited to have Christmas morning at our house. I usually would already have the tree and all my decorations up by now, but see number one with the crazy illness, that hasn't happened yet.

4. I'm done with most of my Christmas shopping. I only have Brent and stocking stuffers left on the list. I'm excited about the stocking stuffers, but have no ideas for Brent. Ideas anyone?

5. Have I shown you Zane's holiday apron. Check it out, it is a ginger bread boy, with little legs and everything. It took a little bit of convincing to get him to keep it on, but once he had it on he wanted to keep it on all day. He was sick so it was difficult to get a good picture. I think the fact that he had no pants on really added to the cuteness.

6. Zane is coming awfully close to being able to say outside. His little mouth makes an O shape but it just isn't quite there yet. It is too bad that it is freezing and rainy here so when he goes and stands by the door to practice his new word we can't actually go outside.

7. Yesterday Zane got new shoes, again. Turns out he had grown a size and half, which makes me feel really bad that we were jamming his feet into tiny shoes, they didn't seem that small at the time. We did find some wide Nike's, which seem to fit his fat feet better than his last pair of shoes. I sure wish he could wear the cheap Target shoes, but his new Nike kicks are really cute!

8. I am wanting to do a hand print craft with Zane to make him an ornament for this year. I bought one with his picture on it, but I think a hand print one would be really cute. Here are the ideas I have so far, this one is super cute if I could get Zane to put his hand on the ornament and not break it. Or I could do the salt dough hand prints, but I can't figure out if they would break/last. Ideas?

9. Currently Zane loves being in small spaces. He gets into my baskets, the storage cubes downstairs, and the many amazon boxes that have been arriving at our house. Once he is in a box/basket he goes on playing or recently he has started to get in a basket with Dale and read him books. A little strange but harmless I guess.

10. The other new phase that started this week with Zane is time outs. We had discussed when we should start some sort of discipline for when Zane hits, bites, throws stuff, or any other number of things he needs to know is not acceptable. This weekend Zane was continually hitting Zach with the metal measuring spoons and I randomly decided to sit him down in "time out." I was surprised when he sat there for his whole minute with little complaint. Maybe they do this at school. Either way he is been back a few times, mainly for running on the couch, hitting, or biting. He seems to know that he is in trouble and stops doing whatever he was put in time out for once he gets out. I hate it, but it was bound to happen at some time.

Here's hoping I feel better for next weeks Ten on Tuesday.

Thanksgiving 2011 Recap

So my everyday blogging goal obviously didn't pan out, what with the sickness and utter sleep deprivation. But we have pulled through, barely, and made the most of this wonderful holiday even with a few 'ears down' as dad would say.

After Zane and I's day of sickness and cuddling on Tuesday Zane appeared to be feeling better on Wednesday. He was a little emotional, but napped well and didn't seem to be feeling to bad. We spent all day Wednesday baking, two pies, and we made the famous Dotter cheese ball to take down to the Korenak Thanksgiving in S.E.M.O. Zach got off work a little early so we were on the road by 4:30, all seemed great at this point. Who knew that Zane would refuse to sleep that night and we would end up being awake literally all night. I think all and all we got around 3 hours of sleep, after a few 30 minutes stretches of sleep here and there. Not a good way to start your Thanksgiving.

Needless to say we didn't wake up Thursday morning feeling to grateful, so much as exhausted. I didn't get to watch any of the parade, we had gone down for naps by that point in the morning. I know it is cliche, but I usually love the parade, all the same floats and balloons as when I was a child. It reminds me of when we would sit around the house, watching the parade, until it was time to go to whatever Thanksgiving events we had planned as children. But this year the nap was much more important. I'll catch the Rockettes next year.

Once we had napped we were all feeling a little better and ready for the feast. It was just our family, Trina, JR, and her kids, and Mike and Amy. It was a delicious lunch, with all the classics, Turkey, mash potatoes, gravy (my personal favorite part), and all the other tasty Thanksgiving must haves. We had lunch conversation questions from a list Amy found in a magazine, which made for some interesting conversations. For example did you know my mother in law's first job was as a vest inspector in down town St. Louis. She worked with Italian men, who she said were "pinchers" and one of whom proposed to her in an attempt to get a green card. Fun fact! I didn't have any ground breaking stories to tell, but it made fun dinner conversation.

The rest of the day was spent playing, grazing, and trying to catch up on sleep for our clan. Zane loves playing with his cousins and his cousins thoroughly enjoy him as well. Adeline was being a wonderful little mommy, but I did have to tell her at one point to think long and hard before having children. She couldn't understand why I would say that, but good advice to live by none the less. Zane and Levi are basically the same size, but Levi is a year older than Zane. It makes for some interesting play sessions with the two of them. They are super cute. Here they are chilling in Papa's chair and playing with the stuffed turkey, which was a big hit at this years celebration.

We attempted a classic cousin's picture, which is always an adventure here it he best we could get. Not bad for five kids if you ask me. We lucked out with Zane being sick or he would have never sat still long enough to get a picture.

After giving up and letting Zane sleep with us we did get some more sleep and today we headed home early in hopes that Zane would sleep in the car. Of course he only slept for about forty five minutes of the two and half hour drive, but we needed to get home and try to re-cooperate before I have to head to work this weekend.

Hopefully everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with their families. We are truly blessed with wonderful family and friends. Happy Thanksgiving!

Ten on Tuesday: Thankful addition

1. If it wasn't Ten on Tuesday my "Thankful" post would have been titled, I'm thankful everyday isn't like today. However, I am going to attempt to keep this post as positive and thankful as possible, though you will sense quite a bit of sarcasm in the things I am grateful for.

2. First of all I am very thankful that I got off work early yesterday. After floating to the respiratory floor, my least favorite patient population, I got the great news that they didn't need me after three. So I got out of the hospital by four, which is always a minor miracle.

3. I am thankful for this bit of luck because when Zach arrived home with Zane last night I could see in Zane's tired, red, eyes that his little cough and runny nose had gone from bad to worse at daycare. This is probably because he doesn't get to sleep there much, but there is nothing I can do about that. He was very tired, emotional, and cuddly so it was a good thing his mommy was there to snuggle with him.

4. This leads me to being thankful for modern medicine. There are the obvious reason, like the fact that Zane's heart works, but today I am thankful for it because it has taken quite the combination of medicines to get us through last night and today. This morning we headed to see the nurse practitioner to get Zane's ears looked at. By this point in time he was running a fever, which Tylenol wasn't helping that much with. The news was as expected, a bad ear infection in his left ear and his right one didn't look much better. So we headed out, into the pouring rain (of course), to get our antibiotics and start our day of intense cuddling.

5. Due to the rainy day I found myself being very thankful for drive thrus ( is it throughs or thrus, neither seems right). I was able to drop off Zane's prescription, drive through the Panera Bread drive through (which I didn't even know existed), eat breakfast in the car, then go back to pick up the prescription all while Zane slept in his car seat. I briefly tried to get him to eat some egg, but gave up and he went back to sleep. (I told you my grateful ten on Tuesday was going to be a bit of stretch).

6. The rest of the day I spent in various locations around the house holding my sleeping baby boy. I tried on  numerous occasions to lay him down, but this just led to large hope defered moments where Zane would wake up screaming ten minutes later, right when I was drifting to sleep in my own bed. I finally just gave up my hopes of catching up on sleep and moved on to being thankful for movies on demand. There is absolutely nothing to watch during the day so I rented a movie, read my book, and tried to doze with no avail.

7. Have I mentioned how much I wish I had a recliner? I would be beyond thankful for one. Zane's room is too little for one to fit in, our living room is full of a big leather furniture set, which leaves the basement. However, good luck keeping a sleeping baby asleep from the basement, upstairs to his crib. I would have loved a recliner today, but made due with the rocking chair, the big leather chair, and the couch. Zane made due with the floor at one point when mommy had to go to bathroom, I know how could I abandon him for so long, so he just laid on the hard wood floor and was almost asleep by the time I got back.

8. Today was suppose to be cookie making day at our house. I had plans of making turkey cookies, you might remember we made them last year for Thanksgiving. Of course this wasn't happening this afternoon, but this evening, after Zane got his second wind thanks to a little Motrin, I thought about trying to make some cookies. I couldn't find the turkey cookie cutter. So I am very thankful we didn't make a batch of sugar cookie dough only to find out we couldn't make turkeys. I guess I will just be bringing pies to the feast, if we attend the feast at all. Hopefully Zane is feeling better tomorrow.

9. Today I put my years of training in patting to good use. To some of you this might sound strange, but to those of you in the Dotter clan you know about the great art form that is a good pat. We all learned this from the master of patting, Grandma Dotter. She patted everyone, while singing/humming a loving tune. All the Dotter's learned this technique from her and before I had a child I would find myself patting, Zach, the kids at work, and anything/one that needed comforting. Today I spent my entire day patting my sweet baby. I thought about Grandma Dotter a lot, thinking about how blessed I was to have known her, wishing she could have met little Zaney. I  know she would have just adored little him. I mean he is a boy, that is really all it took :)

10. Lastly, I am beyond thankful for my amazing husband. He really deserves a whole post, but today I'm thankful that he went to three different Walgreens for various medications and sick time requirements. And he got the oh so glamorous task of cleaning up the projectile vomiting episode. To be fair I was covered in the vomit, so it was probably a fair trade, but still that is the worst job ever. He also successfully ordered pizza for use so we didn't have to make dinner. Oh and I'm thankful for pizza delivery, there are just some nights that you can't face the kitchen, this is when you turn to pizzahut.com!

I'm being summoned for a family game of ring around the rosie, looks like someone is feeling a little better. I have to go! Happy Tuesday everyone!!

Thanksgiving: Family memories

I grew up with many wonderful Thanksgiving traditions. I was blessed to live close to both sets of my Grandparents, so we were able to have Thanksgiving with both families. These two family celebrations were both great, but vastly different. The memories of these celebrations are something I am truly grateful for this year.

The Blakley family gathering was a small affair. My dad only had one brother, who never married, and my Grandfather died when I was three. So gatherings with this side of the family consisted of our family, Uncle David, and my Grandma Blakley. The menu for this dinner was always very traditional, turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, and the only strange thing on the menu was the occasional sauerkraut, a la our church's Thanksgiving dinner (another one of my favorite Thanksgiving traditions). The Blakley Thanksgiving meal was prepared by my Grandma up until I was in about junior high when mom, Abbey, and I took over most of the preparing duties, but the meal was still usually at Grandma's house. We ate around a small table, and every year dad declared that that year was most likely going to be Grandma's last Thanksgiving, so we had to really go all out. Funny how the woman I was sure would die any day lived to be 94 and the man who I was sure was invincible only lived to be 61 years old.

The Dotter family gathering, on the other hand, was usually a big to do. My mom had three brothers and one sister and there were 14 cousins on that side of the family. Each year a large number of these people came to the Thanksgiving events. Growing up the Dotter Thanksgiving took place at Grandma and Grandpa Dotter's house in Okeene. The big meal was always at lunch and the menu was never very traditional. As I remember it we always had "pork tenderloin" prepared by Grandpa, who is a fantastic cook. However, the "pork tenderloin" always turned out to be some other kind of meat that Grandpa didn't think we would eat if we really knew what it was, such as duck, pheasant, buffalo, and I vaguely remember eating turtle some where along the way and thinking it was pork tenderloin, but I don't think it was at Thanksgiving. The sides weren't always the same, but always delicious. My favorite was the home made stuffing, one of Grandpa's specialties.

There were two tables at this dinner, the big table in the blue room (named such because of the bright blue carpet) and the kids table which was in the kitchen or the den. The kids table didn't always consist of the youngest people at the dinner, but it was always a fun crowd. I still try to sit at the kids table whenever possible. My job at the Dotter Thanksgiving was filling all the goblets with ice and then filling the cups with water, using the famous "Presidents Pitcher." This was a large, black, plastic pitcher that completely randomly had a picture of the presidents/people who wrote the Declaration of Independence on it. Somehow I managed to inherit this pitcher recently,  much to the other cousins dismay (well at least Able's dismay). The other special part of this meal was that when I was little I got to sit on the little, red, velvet piano bench at the end of the table, right next to Grandma. It felt like a place of honor, though Grandma rarely, if ever, sat down.

After the meal the grand kids would go outside and pick up pecans or play, while Grandpa and the Uncles headed to the den to watch football, usually while cracking/cleaning said pecans. Grandma ran around crazily doing God knows what, but she seemed to always be moving, until later in the day when it was time to break out the famous Dotter cheese ball and then she would, maybe, sit down and chat a bit.

My Grandmother died in October of 2006. That Thanksgiving everything changed. The Thanksgiving meal moved from Okeene to my parent's new house. Everything felt different that year. I remember distinctly feeling like I had moved up a generation in the course of a few weeks. I went from being one of the kids playing around outside, with my only responsibility being filling water glasses, to taking part in making the meal, washing the dishes, and making sure my mother sat down and didn't get too exhausted. I remember thinking how much work went into such a huge meal with so many people and then I began to realize why my Grandmother died sooner than we had all expected.

Now I rarely get home for Thanksgiving, but we have celebrations at other times of the year. They are always full of wonderful family fun, great food, and we continue to make great family memories. But I do miss the old Okeene Dotter gatherings.

Thanksgiving: Little boy hugs and kisses

In an attempt to use this Thanksgiving week for it's intended purpose, I am going to try to write about something I am thankful for each day this week. "Try" being the key word, not that I don't have an abundance of blessings, I just don't have an abundance of time.

Today I am thankful for little boy hugs and kisses. There is nothing better than having your child run up to you, full of love and delight, throw his arms around your neck, and give you a big hug. This is how I am greeted everyday when I come home from work and on your days home together I get hugs all through out the day. It is wonderful. Before I lay him down for naps or night time we have our cuddle time where we sing songs while he finishes his milk. Once he done with his milk he will give me a big hug, cuddle into my neck, laying his little boy head on my shoulder, and sometimes I even get pats!  That is the greatest part of everyday.

He doesn't hand out kisses as freely but will on occasion give me kisses on the cheek. Sometimes when you ask for a kiss he will oblige, but not always, they are special and not to be given out willy nilly. He always kisses Dale and Mooly, his two favorite stuffed animals, and generally kisses pictures of people he knows or characters in books. He has recently started to want to look at the scrapbook I made of his first year. He loves tickling pictures of himself and gives out plenty of kisses to the cute baby. For some reason he seems to kiss Zach more than me, but that's alright because I get plenty of snuggles and hugs. Here is Zane planting a sloppy kiss on Daddy as a welcome home gift!

I hope he always wants to hug and love on his mom, though I'm sure that won't always be the case. But for now my cup runneth over.

Love Thursday: Comfy Clothes

Abbey use to do Love Thursday from time to time so I thought I would steal her idea this week, just for fun

I am just going to say it, I love sweat pants and hoodies. They were my uniform in college, mainly because after class I would spend hours in the library, oh and my boyfriend lived five hundred miles away. Now I wear sweat pants or scrubs (a professional version of sweat pants) pretty much everyday. I like them because  they don't bind, they can get dirty, and most importantly, they are comfortable making it easy for me to run after my one year old. At home I usually go through at least two outfits a day, what with the grimmy little fingers, cooking, and playing outside. I like that I can through a load of sweat pants and t-shirts in the washing machine and can put them directly in the dryer without worrying if they will fit the next time I put them on.

 I hate buying and wearing dress clothes because they never seem to fit right. They shrink the first time you wash them, then they are too short and/or too tight, so they never look like they did in the store.  The main reason I don't like dressing up currently is because I am fat. Let's face it, your body is never the same after having a kid, even when the number on the scale is the same as it was the day you got pregnant. So for those skinny people out there who can throw on whatever they want, feel comfortable, and go about their day, let me explain what dress clothes are like to your fat friends. A day in dress clothes consists of me constantly pulling my pants up over my fat roll or pulling the tank top under my sweater up so that I don't flash the world. It's exhausting and I don't feel pretty, just uncomfortable. 

Hopefully one day the fat roll will be gone and dress clothes will not only make me feel pretty, but actually be fun to wear. However, since I am pretty sure I am going to be pregnant or raising little kids for a while, I will stick to my comfy pants at home. They make me happy, though they probably aren't the most flattering. I'm fine with it!

And that is what I love this Thursday, along with numerous other things of course, but that's the soap box I decided to stand on! 

Happy Thursday!!!!!!

What a ride

While mom and I were trying to get Zane to play in the huge pile of leaves we had made in the back yard, he went exploring and found the wheel barrow. Of course my little dare devil thought he needed to take a ride in it and Grandma was more than willing to take him for a spin. Needless to say he loved it and thought he should probably be able to ride in it standing up or jump out head first, which would make the ride so much more entertaining. We convinced him sitting or laying down were the best options and he had tons of fun on his numerous rides around the yard. Thanks Grandma!

 Oh what simple fun!

 The Grand Finale, sliding into the leaves!

Ten on Tuesday

1. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESS!!!!! Jess is one of "my people" and has been featured numerous times on the blog before. She has been my besty since I was a freshman in high school when we were on the Oklahoma Catholic Youth Advisory Board together. While on the board we designed tons of awesome t-shirts and became best friends, including communicating by snail mail (yes that is how far back we go). We have been through thick and thin together and I love her like a sister! Happy birthday Jess, hope you had a great day. Your present will be mailed tomorrow, so just a tad bit late, but it doesn't matter because all of November is Jessikapalooza.
2. I am exhausted and am pretty sure I will be for the next decade. I am trying to just come to terms with it, however I miss sleep and so dream of a day where I could go to bed and sleep, uninterrupted, until something crazy like 8am. That would be amazing. That may be my top Christmas present request!
3. On the Christmas present front I have made great progresson my Christmas gift list. I am not really inspired so I apologize in advance to everyone whom I have bought presents for, not my greatest showing, but again see number two about how freaking exhaused I am, hence uninspired.
4. We have decided to get Zane a play kitchen for Christmas. I am, not so secretly, excited about it because I desperately wanted a play kitchen and play food when I was growing up. Honest to God I use to use leaves of different plants as different kinds of food. I can't decide if that was ingenious or terribly sad, but either way I'm super pumped about Zanes miniture kitchen and food. I think he will love it because he truly loves cooking with me and spends most of his time with some sort of kitchen utensil in his hand.
5. In depressing/terrifing news there was a body of a little boy found right down the street from the last apartment we lived in, which is about five minutes from where I live now. Sounds like there were parental issues and not some random person stealing babies, but maybe I live in the ghetto. I don't think I do, but maybe?? Turning on the house alarm tonight for sure.

6. I have signed up for a new scrapbooking class online. It was a free, self paced classed, entitled "Embrace Imperfection." For those of you who know me well you know that I am very OCD when it comes to things being even, in line, and keeping all things symmetrical. This is one of the reasons why I didn't scrapbook for so long and why I still struggle getting started doing pages now. I like all things to match and be nice and evenly spaced. I'm hoping this class helps and doesn't stress me out, we shall see!

7. I want to do some baking for Thanksgiving but not sure what to make or if my baking skills will be needed at our Thanksgiving festivities. I am thinking about making turkey cookies like I did last year a maybe a pie or two. That sounds great on paper, now I just have to find the time. Zane loves baking so maybe we will try to do that while I'm off the few days before Thanksgiving.
 
8. Zane's new adorable habit is giving kisses to everyone and everything. He just recently started giving kisses to inanimate objects like his stuffed animals, toys, or characters in books we are reading. Tonights bed time book was "How Do Dinasours Say Goodnight" which has a part where the dinasours give their mommy's a kiss and get into bed. He then had to "kiss" every dinasour on the upcoming pages. His book kisses really just consist of him pressing his cheek against the page, but it is still super cute and so sweet. He can be stingy with his kisses for people, but he loves  kissing Mooly and Dale, no problem.
 
9. Is it bad that I still have Halloween decorations up? I just decorate for fall and halloween as a combo and then never take down the trick or treat signs and ghosts. They are cute and Thanksgiving is only three weeks later, I say it isn't worth the hassel. I'll go straight from ghosts to Christmas trees, I'm fine with it.
 
10. Lastly, many thanks to my mom for making the quick trip up here last weekened to keep Zane and I company. I probably would have died from exhaustion had you not been here. We had a great time, shopped, played, and had some intense games of actual scrabble, not even on our phones, can you imagine. I have to say I swept mom in a best out of three series, which I am pretty proud of!

Ten on Tuesday

1. I will start with a sleeping update. The night I wrote the post about the great sleeping debacle of 2011 the humidifier ended up setting off the smoke detector in Zane's room. Keep in mind this didn't wake up the child who will wake up the moment my feet hit the floor, when I get out of bed at night to go to the bathroom, but the freakishly loud beeping noise above his head didn't phase him. He woke up when we stormed into his room thinking it was on fire though. He did sleep the rest of the night, a minor miracle. Last night, however, he got up at 1:30am and was up until about 4am. We tried every tactic in the book and honestly not sure how Zach finally got him to sleep. So to sum it up, not a lot of progress.

2. Zane has a new fun toy thanks to Aunt Trina and Grammi/Pappa who brought it up to us Friday. It is a big play place, complete with slides and a tunnel, for our back yard. Trina's kids had grown out of it, but it is just right for Zane. After a little but of a scrub down with soap and water Zane's new playhouse was ready to go. As expected Zane headed for the slides and wanted to go down head first, is there any other way? I think Grammi and Pappa were a little surprised at Zane's lack of fear, including him trying to just walk out the holes in the side of the top part. It has been cold and rainy the past few days here so we haven't gotten to enjoy it, but Zach and Zane played it a lot this weekend while I was at work. Here is Zane enjoying his new toy.

3. Yesterday Zane and I ventured away from our usual cookie baking and tried making rice krispy treats instead. Zane loves them and I some how felt like they might have at least a few less calories than chocolate chip cookies. However, turns out rice krispy treats are quite possibly the messiest thing you can possibly make with your child. Well at least if your child feels like he should be able to stick his hands in the bowl and grab out a handful of sticky marshmallow goodness. He did enjoy stirring the marshmallows as they melted but wasn't a fan of not being able to get the sticky krispies off of him.

4. I would like to give a shout out to my fellow earthquake survivors in Oklahoma. That place has been crazy the past couple days with multiple earthquakes/after shocks, tornadoes, and flooding. I'm glad I live in a place named after a Saint so maybe I will be spared from all the random natural disasters. All the family is doing well, though on their toes for what might come next. Good luck guys!

5. Mom is coming up tomorrow to keep me company/watch Zane while Zach goes off to the woods for his annual hunting trip with all the men in his family. I'm excited for mom's visit and even more excited for some help with the crazy one year old. Zane and I have done four days alone before, it doesn't usually end that well. And it just so happens this weekend is my cousins shower so we can go to that too. How fun!

6. My running schedule is coming along, though not loosing any weight, which is ultimately the goal. I have been running during Zane's second nap, if it isn't nice enough to run outdoors. I don't like the treadmill, but it has the added bonus of no hills, which makes the longer runs a little easier. I feel better about myself when I'm done, but would like to see the scale go down as well. It is a difficult time of year to make that happen, but I start a new each day trying to eat better and get my exercise in. Here's hoping I see some change soon.

7. The running takes up the small window of free time I had during my days at home. During Zane's second nap I would usually pull the house together and then take a break by doing some sort of mindless activity i.e. scrapbooking, reading, blogging, or reading other people's blogs. Now I struggle to find time to do these stress relievers which is a bit of a bummer. No I am not one of those people that running acts as a stress reliever, I just do it because I am fat and need to drop some poundage.

8. Zane got his flu shot this evening and it went amazingly well. He loved playing around in the room we were waiting in, got his shot in his little arm without even wincing, took his cookie, and we headed out. That's my tough little man for you, I guess he has built up some tolerance after getting shorts every month all last winter. I am so glad we don't have to do that again.

9. In good news I don't have to go to nights over the upcoming holiday schedule. There was about a week period where I was told I would be going, so I had started to try to shift my thinking about how that was going to fit in with Christmas, New Years, and family visits. But today I got an email saying I could stay on days. Hopefully that works out to my benefit, I just am praying that I either have Christmas Eve or Christmas Day off so we can have Christmas morning with Zane one of those days. It will be our first Christmas all by ourselves and not at one of our families houses. It is going to be strange, but we will make the most of it I'm sure.

10. Last night we watched Lion King with Zane for the first time. It is one of my favorite Disney movie's from my childhood and I have wanted to watch it with him for awhile, but it has been in the volt. Well it is officially out of the volt and it is now Zane's favorite movie. He thoroughly enjoyed watching it last night, though I had forgotten how scary it is in parts (for example the goose stepping hyenas and all the death). Then tonight he found the DVD case and requested to start it over. His favorite part, by far, is the 'I just can't wait to be king' musical sequence. He bee bops around the living room through the whole thing.

Stressful Sleep

The name seems like an oxy moron, I know, but that has been the situation in our house for a while now. When I lay down at night it isn't a feeling of relaxation, thinking about the restful night ahead. It is more like a feeling of dread, wondering how little sleep I will get and how much time I will spend sitting awake in the rocking chair.  I know that it is only a matter of time until Zane wakes up screaming bloody murder. It is worse than a newborn because with a new born you feed them their milk and they go back to sleep. When Zane was a newborn we had a great schedule down. We would switch night duties based on who was working or we would go back and forth on who got up on the nights that he got up multiple times. The rules were never hard and fast, but they worked well and I felt that I could always sleep while Zach was up with him and though I didn't realize it at the time I was actually pretty well rested.

 

Over the past few months things have changed. Zane has become very attached to his mommy. It isn't so much during the day that it is a problem because he would be happy to play with Zach at anytime, but during the night he only wants me to hold him when he wakes up. Zach consistently tries to go comfort him, but sadly it only makes Zane scream more. This is hard for everyone involved. Zane is screaming more, Zach is feeling terrible because Zane doesn't want him to hold him, I'm frustrated that I have to always get up with him and am getting no sleep, then Zach thinks I'm mad at him, and we are all exhausted and crabby, so you see where this circle of frustration leads. 

Zane has never been a great sleeper. I might go as far to say that he is a bad sleeper. He had started sleeping through the night before surgery, but then after surgery he started waking up in the night, even having night terrors at times. The night terrors still happen quite a bit and they are horribly sad and hard to watch.  When he has one he wakes up screaming bloody murder and when we go to get him he is inconsolable. We can't get him to wake up unless we turn all the lights on and talk to him for a little bit. Once he is awake he always has a terrible case of the sup sups and needs to be held for quite some time to get calmed down. When these started was when he started wanting me to hold him when he woke up, but it has gotten progressively worse to the point that anytime he wakes up he wants me to be the one to hold him. 

 

I know that I created this problem last year when I was in a a dark place and needed my happy thought close at hand. The time I spent rocking him to sleep, singing to him, and cuddling him was often the happiest part of my day. There were days when I didn't want to do anything but hold my baby and if that meant rocking him to sleep for all his naps and at night that is what I did to keep going. Zach was completely willing and able to put him to sleep, but at that point in time I needed to do it. It isn't how I had planned on parenting, rocking my baby to sleep all the time and being the one to always put him to sleep, but lets face it last year wasn't exactly how I had planned my first year of parenthood to play out either. 

The other situation that has added to his sleeping difficulties is our constant break in routines. We go to my mom's house a lot or Zach's parents and this completely breaks his routine. When we aren't at home we usually rock him to sleep instead of letting him put himself to sleep, like we do at home. He sleeps in unfamilar places, so when he wakes up he is scared because he doesn't know where he is. His nap schedules get off and then things go down hill when we get home. There is also the fact that his daycare routine and home routine are completely different and there is no sort of consistency in when he is in daycare vs home since I work different days each week. These are two things we can't change, so are just trying to deal with them the best we can.

Last week, in the middle of the night, after having been in the chair with Zane for an hour and realizing it was only two hours until I had to get up for work, I had a mental break of sorts. Zach ended up taking Zane to the living room where the read books for awhile (probably another hour) and then Zane finally fell asleep. This isn't a long term solution, but I  had to have more than three hours of sleep for the twelve hour day ahead. Since then I have tried to have a change of heart and see things from a different perspective and have prayed continually for patience. I know that this is a phase, a long phase, but still a phase. I know that at some point I will be missing, desperately, the days when my little boy wanted me to hold and cuddle me. I try to focus on what a blessing he is and not on how frustrated I am at the fact that he hates sleeping. I also know that I won't die of exhaustion. I have worked night and lived on four hours of sleep all the time, I feel terrible when I do it, but I don't drop over. Lastly I know that the alternative is just letting him scream and I cannot handle that either so I sit in the chair, we rock, and we sing.

We are open for advice, but keep in mind I lie somewhere between rocking your baby to sleep every night, holding them the entire time while they are sleeping, and letting them "scream it out" in their room. I know that if I let him scream long enough he will begin to think I won't come when he screams, but I'm just not ok with that thought. We do let him cry for 5-10 minutes and sometimes when he is just kind of moaning or whining in there he does go back to sleep. However, the screaming usually just leads to him getting much more upset, in turn taking longer for me to calm him down once I go get him. Tonight I am trying mom's idea of some sort of white noise in his room. We put his humidifier back in his room, which makes very little noise, but has a light on it and if nothing else will humidify the dry air. We also put a little fan in there which makes more noise so it might help him sleep? I honestly am grasping at any tiny straw and Zach, God love him, is going along with my craziness. Tomorrow I am thinking about moving the furniture around in his room, to switch things up. I have nothing to base that on, but again, straws people, tiny tiny straws of hope.

 Any ideas, other than just letting him scream I would greatly appreciate! Thanks mommy friends, just needed to vent a bit! I'm going to bed now, wish me luck, or say a prayer, that will probably work better. 

Ten on Tuesday

1. Halloween went off without a hitch. Zane ate three candy bars and still went to bed without complaint. Zane also received a Halloween present from his God Mother yesterday. It was The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown Book, complete with sound effect buttons. He specifically liked the sound effect for snoopy being the flying ace, very dramatic. The buttons are a little difficult for him to push, but we "read" the book numerous times and had to look through it one more time before bed. Thanks Aunt Anna. 

2. We did manage to get our pumpkins carved, though it took us until the day before Halloween to do it. Turns out this is actually perfect timing because they looked great for all our trick or treaters. Zane had fun watching/helping us carve our pumpkins and play with the pumpkin insides. He really thought he should be able to put the pieces we cut out back into the pumpkin. Oh and he might have had a few tastes of pumpkin along the way. We made roasted pumpkin seeds, which is my favorite part of carving pumpkins, and Zane enjoyed some of those as well. I was slightly concerned he would choke on them, but he actually loves the chewing sound they make, so far so good. Here is Zane "helping" carve pumpkins 

 

3. In other fun fall news Zane got to play in the leaves this past week. We grilled, for probably the last time what with the time change coming up, and Zane got to play in tons of leaves. He seemed to have a great time, but really wanted to try to put the leaves in the fire. 

 

4. I promised farm pictures and never posted any so here are a few highlights. The main one for me was watching all the kids playing ring around the rosie together. I didn't get pictures of it when all three where playing, but here is Maggie and Zane playing together. Maggie, who can be a bit bossy at times, kept saying "fall down Zaney boy" it was too cute. Another favorite photo from my farm trip was Uncle Able proudly displaying the hot dogs he grilled on the bundle fork. It is the best way to cook hot dogs over a camp fire, problem is bundle forks may be hard to come by these days.

 

5. How about those St. Louis Cardinals!! We made the adult decision not to go to the parade and festivities on Sunday and watched it on TV instead. It turned out to be a good decision since it was cold, rainy, and Zane wasn't in the best of moods. Zane stayed up all together too late Friday night mainly because Zach and I couldn't pry ourselves away from the TV long enough to put him to bed. Here is Zane with his Cardinals puffy finger. He wore this on and off throughout the post season and loved it.

6. Zane has started playing pretend much more lately, which I absolutely love. He pretends to feed his horse, Dale, all the time. Usually he gives him a bite from his snack container or gives him a drink from his sippy cup. I often ask him if Dale is hungry and then he will proceed to go get Dale and give him a snack. He drives his tractors around more and last night tried to ride on his Little People Farm tractor. This is involved him basically laying on the tractor while he crawled around. It was highly entertaining. I know he would enjoy a little riding toy of some sort for the house, but frankly I'm terrified. He would go from calmy riding on it to trying to stand on it in about 2.5 seconds. Here he is feeding Dale. 

 

7. On that note I am getting excited about Christmas shopping for Zane. I am trying to remain under control and continue to remind myself that Zane is one year old, will in no way remember this Christmas, and I do not need to spend a ton of money on toys which he will most likely never play with. I am trying to get my shopping done early, spreading out that finacial burdan a bit and trying to avoid the crowds. I have bought a few stocking stuffers from Target's one spot and I got this awesome Little People nativity set which was only $25 at Target! He thoroughly enjoyed opening his heart birthday presents so Christmas morning should be fun. Here is hoping I am not at work Christmas morning.

 

8. I have started crotcheting again! (No, I'm not pregnant). I use to crotchet all the time. I actualy taught myself how during the 2006 world series run, back when I wasn't really into the game so much as just trying to support my husband's addiction, without going crazy. Now the cardinals are world series victors again and I am taking it back up. However, now I have a one year old who is very into playing with the yarn, because it all feels like his baby blanket. I finally figured out that I can maybe get away with doing it while Zane is awake if I sit at the table. Not as comfy as the couch, but such is life. I also forgot how terrible I am at reading crochet patterns. I am fine once I get started but the first two rows are impossible for me. Maybe I will in list the help of my mother in law when she comes to visit Friday. She is a master crocheter.

 

9. While composting the innards of our pumpkins we decided to pull up the two pepper plants that we thought hadn't produced any peppers, mainly because the squirrels would eat them before they got big. Turns out there were two green peppers on the plants after we pulled them up. Zach ate one and Zane munched on the other one while he explored the yard. I sure wish the squirrels would leave my garden alone, I would love to actually have fresh produce one day.

10. Last but not least. Here is an added Halloween picture of the week. I got these glasses from work, I guess they were handing them out to the kids yesterday. How freaking adorable does Zane look in them. Too funny!